The Huguenots in France Part 31

Thus, of the population of the village of St. Crepin, in the valley of the Durance, not fewer than one-tenth are deaf and dumb, with a large proportion of idiots.]

There were other valleys in the same neighbourhood, whither we are now wending, where the persecution, though equally ferocious, proved less destructive; the inhabitants succeeding in making their escape into comparatively inaccessible places in the mountains before they could be put to the sword. For instance, in Val Fressinieres--also opening into the valley of the Durance a little lower down than Val Louise--the Vaudois Church has never ceased to exist, and to this day the majority of the inhabitants belong to it. From the earliest times the people of the valley were distinguished for their "heresy;" and as early as the fourteenth century eighty persons of Fressinieres and the neighbouring valley of Argentieres,--willing to be martyrs rather than apostates,--were burnt at Embrun because of their religion. In the following century (1483) we find ninety-nine informations laid before John Lord Archbishop of Embrun against supposed heretics of Val Fressinieres. The suspected were ordered to wear a cross upon their dress, before and behind, and not to appear at church without displaying such crosses. But it further appears from the records, that, instead of wearing the crosses, most of the persons so informed against fled into the mountains and hid themselves away in caves for the s.p.a.ce of five years.

The nest steps taken by the Archbishop are described in a Latin ma.n.u.script,[103] of which the following is a translation:--

"Also, that in consequence of the above, the monk Francis Splireti, of the order of Mendicants, Professor in Theology, was deputed in the quality of Inquisitor of the said valleys; and that in the year 1489, on the 1st of January, knowing that those of Freyssinier had relapsed into infamous heresy, and had not obeyed their orders, nor carried the cross on their dress, but on the contrary had received their excommunicated and banished brethren without delivering them over to the Church, sent to them new citation, to which not having appeared, an adjournment of their condemnation as hardened heretics, when their goods would be confiscated, and themselves handed over the secular power, was made to the 28th of June; but they remaining more obstinate than ever, so much so that no hope remains of bringing them back, all persons were forbidden to hold any communication whatsoever with them without permission of the Church, and it was ordered by the Procureur Fiscal that the aforesaid Inquisitor do proceed, without further notice, to the execution of his office."

[Footnote 103: This was one of the MSS deposited by Samuel Morland (Oliver Cromwell's amba.s.sador to Piedmont) at Cambridge in 1658, and is quoted by Jean Leger in his History of the Vaudois Churches.]

What the execution of the Inquisitor's office meant, is, alas! but too well known. Bonds and imprisonment, scourgings and burnings at Embrun.

The poor people appealed to the King of France for help against their persecutors, but in vain. In 1498 the inhabitants of Fressinieres appeared by a procurator at Paris, on the occasion of the new sovereign, Louis XII., ascending the throne. But as the King was then seeking the favour of a divorce from his wife, Anne of Brittany, from Pope Alexander VI., he turned a deaf ear to their pet.i.tion for mercy.

On the contrary, Louis confirmed all the decisions of the clergy, and in return for the divorce which he obtained, he granted to the Pope's son, the infamous Caesar Borgia, that very part of Dauphiny inhabited by the Vaudois, together with the t.i.tle of Duke of Valentinois. They had appealed, as it were, to the tiger for mercy, and they were referred to the vulture.

The persecution of the people of the valleys thus suffered no relaxation, and all that remained for them was flight into the mountains, to places where they were most likely to remain unmolested.

Hence they fled up to the very edge of the glaciers, and formed their settlements at almost the farthest limits of vegetation. There the barrenness of the soil, the inhospitality of the climate, and the comparative inaccessibility of their villages, proved their security.

Of them it might be truly said, that they "wandered about in sheepskins and goat-skins; being dest.i.tute, afflicted, tormented (of whom the world was not worthy); they wandered in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth." Yet the character of these poor peasants was altogether irreproachable. Even Louis XII.

said of them, "Would to G.o.d that I were as good a Christian as the worst of these people!" The wonder is that, in the face of their long-continued persecutions, extending over so many centuries, any remnant of the original population of the valleys should have been preserved. Long after the time of Louis XII. and Caesar Borgia, the French historian, De Thou (writing in 1556), thus describes the people of Val Fressinieres: "Notwithstanding their squalidness, it is surprising that they are very far from being uncultivated in their morals. They almost all understand Latin; and are able to write fairly enough. They understand also as much of French as will enable them to read the Bible and to sing psalms; nor would you easily find a boy among them who, if he were questioned as to the religious opinions which they hold in common with the Waldenses, would not be able to give from memory a reasonable account of them."[104]

[Footnote 104: De Thou's History, book xxvii.]

After the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes, the Vaudois enjoyed a brief respite from their sufferings. They then erected temples, appointed ministers, and wors.h.i.+pped openly. This, however, only lasted for a short time, and when the Edict was revoked, and persecution began again, in the reign of Louis XIV., their wors.h.i.+p was suppressed wherever practicable. But though the Vaudois temples were pulled down and their ministers banished, the Roman Catholics failed to obtain a footing in the valley. Some of the pastors continued to brave the fury of the persecutors, and wandered about from place to place among the scattered flocks, ministering to them at the peril of their lives.

Rewards were offered for their apprehension, and a sort of "Hue and Cry" was issued by the police, describing their age, and height, and features, as if they had been veritable criminals. And when they were apprehended they were invariably hanged. As late as 1767 the parliament of Gren.o.ble condemned their pastor Berenger to death for continuing to preach to congregations in the "Desert."

This religious dest.i.tution of the Vaudois continued to exist until a comparatively recent period. The people were without either pastors or teachers, and religion had become a tradition with them rather than an active living faith. Still, though poor and dest.i.tute, they held to their traditional belief, and refused to conform to the dominant religion. And so they continued until within the last forty years, when the fact of the existence of these remnants of the ancient Vaudois in the valleys of the High Alps came to the knowledge of Felix Neff, and he determined to go to their help and devote himself to their service.

One would scarcely expect to find the apostle of the High Alps in the person of a young Swiss soldier of artillery. Yet so it was. In his boyhood, Neff read Plutarch, which filled his mind with admiration of the deeds of the great men of old. While pa.s.sing through the soldier phase of his career the "Memoirs of Oberlin" accidentally came under his notice, the perusal of which gave quite a new direction to his life. Becoming impressed by religion, his ambition now was to be a missionary. Leaving the army, in which he had reached the rank of sergeant at nineteen, he proceeded to prepare himself for the ministry, and after studying for a time, and pa.s.sing his preliminary examinations, he was, in conformity with the custom of the Geneva Church, employed on probation as a lay helper in parochial work. In this capacity Neff first went to Mens, in the department of Isere, where he officiated in the absence of the regular pastor, as well as occasionally at Vizille, for a period of about two years.

It was while residing at Mens that the young missionary first heard of the existence of the scattered communities of primitive Christians on the High Alps, descendants of the ancient Vaudois; and his mind became inflamed with the desire of doing for them what Oberlin had done for the poor Protestants of the Ban de la Roche. "I am always dreaming of the High Alps," he wrote to a friend, "and I would rather be stationed there than under the beautiful sky of Languedoc."

But it was first necessary that he should receive ordination for the ministry; and accordingly in 1823, when in his twenty-fifth year, he left Mens with that object. He did not, however, seek ordination by the National Church of Geneva, which, in his opinion, had in a great measure ceased to hold Evangelical truth; but he came over to London, at the invitation of Mr. Cook and Mr. Wilks, two Congregational ministers, by whom he was duly ordained a minister in the Independent Chapel, Poultry.

Shortly after his return to France, Neff, much to his own satisfaction, was invited as pastor to the very district in which he so much desired to minister--the most dest.i.tute in the High Alps.

Before setting out he wrote in his journal, "To-morrow, with the blessing of G.o.d, I mean to push for the Alps by the sombre and picturesque valley of L'Oisan." After a few days, the young pastor was in the scene of his future labours; and he proceeded to explore hamlet after hamlet in search of the widely-scattered flock committed to his charge, and to arrange his plans for the working of his extensive parish.

But it was more than a parish, for it embraced several of the most extensive, rugged, and mountainous arrondiss.e.m.e.nts of the High Alps.

Though the whole number of people in his charge did not amount to more than six or seven hundred, they lived at great distances from each other, the churches to which he ministered being in some cases as much as eighty miles apart, separated by gorges and mountain-pa.s.ses, for the most part impa.s.sable in winter. Neff's district extended in one direction from Vars to Briancon, and in another from Champsaur in the valley of the Drac to San Veran on the slope of Monte Viso, close to the Italian frontier. His residence was fixed at La Chalp, above Queyras, but as he rarely slept more than three nights in one place, he very seldom enjoyed its seclusion.

The labour which Neff imposed upon himself was immense; and it was especially in the poorest and most dest.i.tute districts that he worked the hardest. He disregarded alike the summer's heat and the winter's cold. His first visit to Dormilhouse, in Val Fressinieres, was made in January, when the mountain-paths were blocked with ice and snow; but, a.s.sembling the young men of the village, he went out with them armed with hatchets, and cut steps in the ice to enable the wors.h.i.+ppers from the lower hamlets to climb up to service in the village church. The people who first came to hear him preach at Violens brought wisps of straw with them, which they lighted to guide them through the snow, while others, who had a greater distance to walk, brought pine torches.

Nothing daunted, the valiant soldier, furnished with a stout staff and shod with heavy-nailed shoes, covered with linen socks to prevent slipping on the snow, would set out with his wallet on his back across the Col d'Orcieres in winter, in the track of the lynx and the chamois, with the snow and sleet beating against his face, to visit his people on the other side of the mountain. His patience, his perseverance, his sweetness of temper, were unfailing. "Ah!" said one unbelieving Thomas of Val Fressinieres in his mountain patois, "you have come among us like a woman who attempts to kindle a fire with green wood; she exhausts her breath in blowing it to keep the little flame alive, but the moment she quits it, it is instantly extinguished."

Neff nevertheless laboured on with hope, and neither discouragement nor obstruction slackened his efforts. And such labours could not fail of their effect. He succeeded in inspiring the simple mountaineers with his own zeal, he evoked their love, and excited their enthusiastic admiration. When he returned to Dormilhouse after a brief absence, the whole village would turn out and come down the mountain to meet and embrace him. "The rocks, the cascades, nay, the very glaciers," he wrote to a friend, "all seemed animated, and presented a smiling aspect; the savage country became agreeable and dear to me from the moment its inhabitants were my brethren."

Unresting and indefatigable, Neff was always at work. He exhorted the people in hovels, held schools in barns in which he taught the children, and catechised them in stables. His hand was in every good work. He taught the people to sing, he taught them to read, he taught them to pray. To be able to speak to them familiarly, he learnt their native patois, and laboured at it like a schoolboy. He worked as a missionary among savages. The poor mountaineers had been so long dest.i.tute of instruction, that everything had as it were to be begun with them from the beginning. Sharing in their hovels and stables, with their squalor and smoke, he taught them how to improve them by adding chimneys and windows, and showed how warmth might be obtained more healthfully than by huddling together in winter-time with the cattle. He taught them manners, and especially greater respect for women, inculcating the lesson by his own gentleness and tender deference. Out of doors, he showed how they might till the ground to greater advantage, and introduced an improved culture of the potato, which more than doubled the production. Observing how the pastures of Dormilhouse were scorched by the summer sun, he urged the adoption of a system of irrigation. The villagers were at first most obstinate in their opposition to his plans; but he persevered, laid out a ca.n.a.l, and succeeded at last in enlisting a body of workmen, whom he led out, pickaxe in hand, himself taking a foremost part in the work; and at last the waters were let into the ca.n.a.l amidst joy and triumph. At Violens he helped to build and finish the chapel, himself doing mason-work, smith-work, and carpenter-work by turns. At Dormilhouse a school was needed, and he showed the villagers how to build one; preparing the design, and taking part in the erection, until it was finished and ready for use. In short, he turned his hand to everything--nothing was too high or too low for this n.o.ble citizen of two worlds. At length, a serious accident almost entirely disabled him. While on one of his mountain journeys, he was making a detour amongst a ma.s.s of rocky debris, to avoid the dangers of an avalanche, when he had the misfortune to fall and severely sprain his knee. He became laid up for a time, and when able to move, he set out for his mother's home at Geneva, in the hope of recovering health and strength; for his digestive powers were also by this time seriously injured. When he went away, the people of the valleys felt as if they should never see him more; and their sorrow at his departure was heart-rending. After trying the baths of Plombieres without effect, he proceeded onwards to Geneva, which he reached only to die; and thus this good and n.o.ble soldier--one of the bravest of earth's heroes--pa.s.sed away to his eternal reward at the early age of thirty-one.

The valley of Fressinieres--the principle scene of Neff's labours--joins the valley of the Durance nearly opposite the little hamlet of La Roche. There we leave the high road from Briancon to Fort Dauphin, and crossing the river by a timber bridge, ascend the steep mountain-side by a mule path, in order to reach the entrance to the valley of Fressinieres, the level of which is high above that of the Durance. Not many years since, the higher valley could only be approached from this point by a very difficult mountain-path amidst rocks and stones, called the Ladder, or Pas de l'ech.e.l.le. It was dangerous at all times, and quite impa.s.sable in winter. The mule-path which has lately been made, though steep, is comparatively easy.

What the old path was, and what were the discomforts of travelling through this district in Neff's time, may be appreciated on a perusal of the narrative of the young pastor Bost, who in 1840 determined to make a sort of pilgrimage to the scenes of his friend's labours some seventeen years before. M. Bost, however, rather exaggerates the difficulties and discomforts of the valleys than otherwise. He saw no beauty nor grandeur in the scenery, only "horrible mountains in a state of dissolution" and constantly ready to fall upon the heads of ma.s.sing travellers. He had no eyes for the picturesque though gloomy lake of La Roche, but saw only the miserable hamlet itself. He slept in the dismal little inn, as doubtless Neff had often done before, and was horrified by the mult.i.tudinous companions that shared his bed; and, tumbling out, he spent the rest of the night on the floor. The food was still worse--cold _cafe noir_, and bread eighteen months old, soaked in water before it could be eaten. His breakfast that morning made him ill for a week. Then his mounting up the Pas de l'ech.e.l.le, which he did not climb "without profound emotion," was a great trouble to him. Of all this we find not a word in the journals or letters of Neff, whose early life as a soldier had perhaps better inured him to "roughing it" than the more tender bringing-up of Pastor Bost.

As we rounded the shoulder of the hill, almost directly overlooking the ancient Roman town of Rama in the valley of the Durance underneath, we shortly came in sight of the little hamlet of Palons, a group of "peasants' nests," overhung by rocks, with the one good house in it, the comfortable parsonage of the Protestant pastor, situated at the very entrance to the valley. Although the peasants' houses which const.i.tute the hamlet of Palons are still very poor and miserable, the place has been greatly improved since Neff's time, by the erection of the parsonage. It was found that the pastors who were successively appointed to minister to the poor congregations in the valley very soon became unfitted for their work by the hards.h.i.+ps to which they were exposed; and being without any suitable domestic accommodation, one after another of them resigned their charge.

To remedy this defect, a movement was begun in 1852 by the Rev. Mr.

Freemantle, rector of Claydon, Bucks, a.s.sisted by the Foreign Aid Society and a few private friends, with the object of providing pastors' dwellings, as well as chapels when required, in the more dest.i.tute places. The movement has already been attended with considerable success; and among its first results was the erection in 1857 of the comfortable parsonage of Palons, the large lower room of which also serves the purpose of a chapel. The present inc.u.mbent is M.

Charpiot, of venerable and patriarchal aspect, whose white hairs are a crown of glory--a man beloved by his extensive flock, for his parish embraces the whole valley, about twelve miles in extent, including the four villages of Ribes, Violens, Minsals, and Dormilhouse; other pastors having been appointed of late years to the more distant stations included in the original widely-scattered charge of Felix Neff.

The situation of the parsonage and adjoining grounds at Palons is charmingly picturesque. It stands at the entrance to the defile which leads into Val Fressinieres, having a background of bold rocks enclosing a mountain plateau known as the "Camp of Catinat," a notorious persecutor of the Vaudois. In front of the parsonage extends a green field planted with walnut and other trees, part of which is walled off as the burying-ground of the hamlet. Alongside, in a deep rocky gully, runs the torrent of the Bia.s.se, leaping from rock to rock on its way to the valley of the Durance, far below. This fall, or cataract, is not inappropriately named the "Gouffouran," or roaring gulf; and its sullen roar is heard all through the night in the adjoining parsonage. The whole height of the fall, as it tumbles from rock to rock, is about four hundred and fifty feet; and about halfway down, the water shoots into a deep, dark cavern, where it becomes completely lost to sight.

The inhabitants of the hamlet are a poor hard-working people, pursuing their industry after very primitive methods. Part of the Bia.s.se, as it issues from the defile, is turned aside here and there to drive little fulling-mills of the rudest construction, where the people "waulk" the cloth of their own making. In the adjoining narrow fields overhanging the Gouffouran, where the ploughs are at work, the oxen are yoked to them in the old Roman fas.h.i.+on, the pull being by a bar fixed across the animals' foreheads.

In the neighbourhood of Palons, as at various other places in the valley, there are numerous caverns which served by turns in early times as hiding-places and as churches, and which were not unfrequently consecrated by the Vaudois with their blood. One of these is still known as the "Glesia," or "eglise." Its opening is on the crest of a frightful precipice, but its diameter has of late years been considerably reduced by the disintegration of the adjoining rock.

Neff once took Captain Cotton up to see it, and chanted the _Te Deum_ in the rude temple with great emotion.

Palons is, perhaps, the most genial and fertile spot in the valley; it looks like a little oasis in the desert. Indeed, Neff thought the soil of the place too rich for the growth of piety. "Palons," said he in his journal, "is more fertile than the rest of the valley, and even produces wine: the consequence is, that there is less piety here."

Neff even entertained the theory that the poorer the people the greater was their humility and fervour, and the less their selfishness and spiritual pride. Thus, he considered "the fertility of the commune of Champsaur, and its proximity to the high road and to Gap, great stumbling-blocks." The loftiest, coldest, and most barren spots--such as San Veran and Dormilhouse--were, in his opinion, by far the most promising. Of the former he said, "It is the highest, and consequently the most pious, village in the valley of Queyras;" and of the inhabitants of the latter he said, "From the first moment of my arrival I took them to my heart, and I ardently desired to be unto them even as another Oberlin."

CHAPTER IV.

THE VAUDOIS MOUNTAIN-REFUGE OF DORMILHOUSE.

The valley of Fressinieres could never have maintained a large population. Though about twelve miles in extent, it contains a very small proportion of arable land--only a narrow strip, of varying width, lying in the bottom, with occasional little patches of cultivated ground along the mountain-sides, where the soil has settled on the ledges, the fields seeming in many cases to hang over precipices. At the upper end of the valley, the mountains come down so close to the river Bia.s.se that no s.p.a.ce is left for cultivation, and the slopes are so rocky and abrupt as to be unavailable even for pasturage, excepting of goats.

Yet the valley seems never to have been without a population, more or less numerous according to the rigour of the religious persecutions which prevailed in the neighbourhood. Its comparative inaccessibility, its inhospitable climate, and its sterility, combined to render it one of the most secure refuges of the Vaudois in the Middle Ages. It could neither be easily entered by an armed force, nor permanently occupied by them. The scouts on the hills overlooking the Durance could always see their enemies approach, and the inhabitants were enabled to take refuge in caves in the mountain-sides, or flee to the upper parts of the valley, before the soldiers could clamber up the steep Pas de l'ech.e.l.le, and reach the barricaded defile through which the Bia.s.se rushes down the rocky gorge of the Gouffouran. When the invaders succeeded in penetrating this barrier, they usually found the hamlets deserted and the people fled. They could then only wreak their vengeance on the fields, which they laid waste, and on the dwellings, which they burned; and when the "brigands" had at length done their worst and departed, the poor people crept back to their ruined homes to pray, amidst their ashes, for strength to enable them to bear the heavy afflictions which they were thus called upon to suffer for conscience' sake.

The villages in the lower part of the valley were thus repeatedly ravaged and destroyed. But far up, at its extremest point, a difficult footpath led, across the face almost of a precipice, which the persecutors never ventured to scale, to the hamlet of Dormilhouse, seated on a few ledges of rock on a lofty mountain-side, five thousand feet above the level of the sea; and this place, which was for centuries a mountain fastness of the persecuted, remains a Vaudois settlement to this day.

An excursion to this interesting mountain hamlet having been arranged, our little party of five persons set out for the place on the morning of the 1st of July, under the guidance of Pastor Charpiot. Though the morning was fine and warm, yet, as the place of our destination was situated well up amongst the clouds, we were warned to provide ourselves with umbrellas and waterproofs, nor did the provision prove in vain. We were also warned that there was an utter want of accommodation for visitors at Dormilhouse, for which we must be prepared. The words scratched on the window of the Norwegian inn might indeed apply to it: "Here the stranger may find very good entertainment--_provided he bring it with him_!" We accordingly carried our entertainment with us, in the form of a store of blankets, bread, chocolate, and other articles, which, with the traveller's knapsacks, were slung across the back of a donkey.

After entering the defile, an open part of the valley was pa.s.sed, amidst which the little river, at present occupying very narrow limits, meandered; but it was obvious from the width of the channel and the debris widely strewn about, that in winter it is a roaring torrent. A little way up we met an old man coming down driving a loaded donkey, with whom one of our party, recognising him as an old acquaintance, entered into conversation. In answer to an inquiry made as to the progress of the good cause in the valley, the old man replied very despondingly. "There was," he said, "a great lack of faith, of zeal, of earnestness, amongst the rising generation. They were too fond of pleasures, too apt to be led away by the fleeting vanities of this world." It was only the old story--the complaint of the aged against the young. When this old peasant was a boy, his elders doubtless thought and said the same of him. The generation growing old always think the generation still young in a state of degeneracy. So it was forty years since, when Felix Neff was amongst them, and so it will be forty years hence. One day Neff met an old man near Mens, who recounted to him the story of the persecutions which his parents and himself had endured, and he added: "In those times there was more zeal than there is now; my father and mother used to cross mountains and forests by night, in the worst weather, at the risk of their lives, to be present at divine service performed in secret; but now we are grown lazy: religious freedom is the deathblow to piety."

An hour's walking brought us to the princ.i.p.al hamlet of the commune, formerly called Fressinieres, but now known as Les Ribes, occupying a wooded height on the left bank of the river. The population is partly Roman Catholic and partly Protestant. The Roman Catholics have a church here, the last in the valley, the two other places of wors.h.i.+p higher up being Protestant. The princ.i.p.al person of Les Ribes is M.

Baridon, son of the Joseph Baridon, receiver of the commune, so often mentioned with such affection in the journal of Neff. He is the only person in the valley whose position and education give him a claim to the t.i.tle of "Monsieur;" and his house contains the only decent apartment in the Val Fressinieres where pastors and visitors could be lodged previous to the erection, by Mr. Freemantle, of the pleasant little parsonage at Palons. This apartment in the Baridons' house Neff used to call the "Prophet's Chamber."

Half an hour higher up the valley we reached the hamlet of Violens, where all the inhabitants are Protestants. It was at this place that Neff helped to build and finish the church, for which he designed the seats and pulpit, and which he opened and dedicated on the 29th of August, 1824, the year before he finally left the neighbourhood.

Violens is a poor hamlet situated at the bottom of a deep glen, or rocky abyss, called La Combe; the narrow valleys of Dauphiny, like those of Devon, being usually called combes, doubtless from the same original Celtic word _cwm_, signifying a hollow or dingle.

A little above Violens the valley contracts almost to a ravine, until we reach the miserable hamlet of Minsals, so shut in by steep crags that for nine months of the year it never sees the sun, and during several months in winter it lies buried in snow. The hamlet consists for the most part of hovels of mud and stone, without windows or chimneys, being little better than stables; indeed, in winter time, for the sake of warmth, the poor people share them with their cattle.

How they contrive to sc.r.a.pe a living out of the patches of soil rescued from the rocks, or hung upon the precipices on the mountain-side, is a wonder.

One of the horrors of this valley consists in the constant state of disintegration of the adjoining rocks, which, being of a slaty formation, frequently break away in large ma.s.ses, and are hurled into the lower grounds. This, together with the fall of avalanches in winter, makes the valley a most perilous place to live in. A little above Minsals, only a few years since, a tremendous fall of rock and mud swept over nearly the whole of the cultivated ground, since which many of the peasantry have had to remove elsewhere. What before was a well-tilled meadow, is now only a desolate waste, covered with rocks and debris.

Another of the horrors of the place is its liability to floods, which come rus.h.i.+ng down, from the mountains, and often work sad havoc.